Post by cjm on May 13, 2015 7:28:13 GMT

Scientists have long known that a single gene can have several effects on an animal. This multi-tasking is called pleiotropy. The new experiment hints that the bird beak didn’t evolve simply through a series of little steps, each having a single effect on bird heads. Instead, birds might have taken some bigger evolutionary leaps.

Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker, Norton, pp 43-49

CHAPTER 3

ACCUMULATING

SMALL CHANGE

We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully

'designed' to have come into existence by chance. How, then, did they

come into existence? The answer, Darwin's answer, is by gradual, step-